


Probably Scary

by Awesome_Sauce432



Series: Post Episode Fun Times [3]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: A bit of hugging, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Give Jester A Hug Please I'm Begging You Someone Give Her A Hug, Nothing Much Really Happens It's Just Beau Reassuring Jester And Jester Reassuring Beau A Bit, Soft Hairbraiding, Softness, emphasis on the comfort, post episode 67
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-14
Updated: 2019-06-14
Packaged: 2020-05-07 16:12:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19212952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Awesome_Sauce432/pseuds/Awesome_Sauce432
Summary: They've been in this creepy-ass temple or tomb or cave or whatever it is for maybe a day, and they'd already had to deal with too many monstrosities to count. The Mighty Nein finally catch a break and bed down for a rest, and Beau volunteers to stay up for first watch.But it turns out that Jester hasn't gone to sleep either, and there's nothing to do but talk.





	Probably Scary

Caleb was the first among them to fall asleep. Perhaps pass out was the more accurate term, but either way it ended with him sprawled out in the middle of his dome, limbs spread wide and eyes closed. Once he was out the rest of them soon followed, with Caduceus lying on his side close to the edge, Yasha sleeping ramrod straight — Beau really had no idea how she was able to go to sleep in one position and wake up the next morning in the exact same position, but Yasha always managed it — and Nott curling up next to Caleb.

 

Fjord at first claimed he would stay up for first watch with Beau, only to change his mind and asking her to wake him up for second watch instead. Beau herself was too tired to needle him about it, resigning herself to a solo watch as Fjord claimed a position next to Yasha, and Jester laid down on her back, her head less than a foot away from Beau.

 

She sighed deeply, looking out through the barrier of their magical hut to their twisted surroundings. This cave, or tomb, or whatever the hell it was… she couldn’t wait until they were done with it and they could leave.

 

Dimly, she registered Jester shifting close by, shuffling a little closer towards her, angling her back so that it nearly pushed up against her leg. Beau watched her silently for a moment, before she realised that Jester’s eyes weren’t closed. Her face was mostly turned away from her, but in the darkness she could barely see Jester’s eyelashes blink every few seconds, as if she weren’t even trying to get to sleep.

 

“Jessie?” Her voice came out as an almost croaky whisper, her exhaustion plainly evident. “You alright?”

 

“Mmhmm.” Came the hummed reply, though she shuffled even closer to Beau, her back now pressing against the side of her leg, her head just in front of her knee as Beau sat cross-legged on the ground.

 

“Can’t sleep?” To be honest, Beau wanted to be asleep. After the day she’d had, the day they’d all had, nothing seemed nicer than a good sleep.

 

But they were deep in this hellhole, so someone needed to be on watch. A selfish part of her had hoped for someone to share it with. But she wasn’t going to ask, not when everyone else was in just as much, if not more, need of a good sleep as her.

 

Absentmindedly, Beau petted the top of Jester’s shoulder, in what she hoped was at least a vaguely reassuring gesture. “It’s okay if you can’t,” She mumbled, wary that some of the others. Might not be fully asleep yet. “Could use some company.”

 

Jester remained still and silent for a moment, before shifting up into a sitting position, arranging herself so that she was next to Beau, but facing her. Her head hung low and her shoulders were tenses, hangs wrung together.

 

“This place…” Jester’s head tilted up and to the side, looking out into the darkness, the unknown. “It’s really scary Beau.”

 

Beau thought of everything that had already happened since they’d entered this place. The spiders, the crying statues, the lightning and mist-monster filled stairwell and the lair full of zombies. In the back of her head she remembered the murmuring of voices that had burrowed and screamed into her brain, and she let her hands fall loosely in her lap.

 

“Yeah. It is.” She stared down at her hands for a moment before looking around at the others, who all seemed undisturbed. None of them had gotten through today unscathed, even if some had undoubtedly had it worse than others. All of them had gotten steadily more freaked out and unsettled with each successive nightmare.

 

“It just keeps getting worse and worse.” Jester tilted herself around so that she was more side by side with Beau, leaning into her, her head resting on Beau’s shoulder. Automatically Beau tried to shift to make it more comfortable for both of them and to try and reassure Jester, looping her arm around Jester’s shoulders, tilting her head so that Jester’s horn didn’t poke into her skin. “There’s so many monsters and evil things and we still don’t know what this Oban guy wants with Yasha and…”

 

Her voice was shaky, breath hitching as Jester sniffled. “I want to get out of here.”

 

“Me too.” Beau tugged Jester in a little closer, linking her other arm so that she was giving her a gentle side-hug. “It’s been kinda shit, hasn’t it.”

 

Jester gave half a chuckle, which Beau chalked up as a success. “There were spiders and mist monsters and zombies… so many zombies…”

 

“Hey, you killed a bunch of them all by yourself.”

 

“It was mostly the Traveller.” Jester shrugged, and Beau couldn’t help but feel even more concerned than she already was. Jester loved to take credit for her accomplishments. If anything, she had a tendency to brag about them sometimes, not downplay them.

 

“Maybe, but without you he wouldn’t have been able to do jack shit.” Beau said firmly. “He’d be nowhere if you weren’t out here being his biggest follower.”

 

Jester didn’t directly respond, exhaling slowly. Her body still seemed stiff, and Beau just wasn’t sure what to say. She wasn’t a comforter, she didn’t know how to talk to people. So she did what she always did when she didn’t know what to say; say the very first thing that popped into her head and hope it turned out for the best.

 

“I heard you turned into a giant bird for a bit.” She mumbled. “Didn’t see it, cause of all the mist, but I bet it was cool.”

 

Jester exhaled again, but this time when she spoke, she sounded a little more steady. “It _was_ really cool.”

 

“Maybe you’ll get another opportunity to turn into a bird. Then I’d get to see it.”

 

“Maybe.” Despite the very slight uptick in her mood, Beau could still sense the undercurrent of exhaustion, a subdued tension that was very unlike Jester.

 

“Do you want to go to sleep? I don’t think I’m as good at massages as you were but I can give it a shot.” Beau let loose the arm that was hugging around Jester’s front, instead tucking loose strands of Jester’s hair behind her ears and horns.

 

Jester chuckled again, twice this time. “No, you’ll never be able to do it as well as my Mama. I just want this to be over with.”

 

“We’ll get through it. I’ll make sure of it.” It felt like an eternity ago when Beau had promised she would kill and die for the Mighty Nein, and Jester had promised she would heal her back. Many things had changed since that day, but that promise wasn’t one of them.

 

Jester hummed an acknowledgement, sliding down a little until her head rested on Beau’s thigh. Beau kept running her fingers through Jester’s hair, threading out the knots.

 

They settled into a soft silence before Jester broke it. “Is your hand okay?”

 

Beau glanced at her hand. She’d taken her lightning gauntlets off once they’d settled down in the hut for the night, leaving her hands covered mostly by her wraps. Her right hand was fine, but the wraps on her left hand had been burned away, disintegrated to her wrist by the weird lightning crystal she’d pulled out of its circuit. Faded, jagged marks crisscrossed her hand, the burns and injury healed up by Caduceus’ magic throughout the day, but not fully erased.

 

If it scarred that way, it would probably look pretty badass. But healing magic could be finicky with things like that. “It doesn’t hurt anymore. I’m fine.”

 

“It looked really bad before.”

 

“Yeah, it hurt like a motherfuck. Kind of like after I’d pulled Nott from the lava. That hurt way more.” Beau surveyed the ruined wraps on her left hand, judging how much could be salvaged.

 

“That was scary too.” Jester’s legs curled up to her chest. “We keep ending up doing scary things, all the time.”

 

“Not all the time. Sometimes we do fun things like stealing boats and buying animals off the side of the road.” Beau started making loose braids in Jester’s hair, matching the tiny smile that was beginning to grow on the tiefling’s face.

 

“I do want to see Nugget and Sprinkle again. But I’m glad they’re not here.”

 

“Oh, when we get back they won’t be able to leave you alone. Poor Yeza, having to deal with them both by himself.”

 

Jester giggled. “I bet they miss me _so_ much.”

 

Inwardly, Beau had a feeling that Sprinkle at least was probably enjoying his vacation very much, but she wasn’t about to say that. Sprinkle was an ungrateful weasel. “They definitely do.”

 

They lapsed into silence once more, but this time Jester seemed to relax with each exhale, one hand resting on Beau’s knees and languidly drawing circles on it. Her eyes slowly began to close, and Beau continued to braid her hair, aware that she was now permanently stuck in this spot unless she wanted to disturb Jester, and she did _not_ want to disturb Jester.

 

“Beau?” Jester spoke under her breath, barely audible.

 

“Yeah?”

 

“It’ll probably be scary tomorrow too.” It was a simple statement, an anticipation of what they might have to face when they woke up. Hell, there was no guarantee they’d even get through this rest without something awful interrupting them.

 

“Probably,” Beau mumbled, unbraiding a chunk of hair and running her fingers through it. “But we’ll all be there. We’ll get through it.”

 

It probably wasn’t the most reassuring thing she could’ve said. But Jester wasn’t an idiot, and she knew just as well as the rest of them that this particular nightmare was probably far from over. All Beau could offer was the fact that she’d be standing beside her. Hopefully, that would be enough.

 

Jester didn’t respond to that, and as the minutes ticked by her breathing began to even out, her eyes slipping shut. Beau continued to slowly comb through her hair with her fingers for a little while longer, half thinking about how she’d wake up Fjord without disturbing Jester, and half thinking about what they’d talked about.

 

She couldn’t wait til they were done with this place. Staring out past the safe wall of their hut, Beau felt a shiver run down her spine, the whispers swelling up in the back of her mind, just far enough away that they couldn’t do anything, couldn’t blank out her mind and leave her stunned again, but she couldn’t forget that they were there.

 

Beau looked down at Jester, curled up with her head resting on Beau’s leg. She tried to push the thoughts of the whispers out of her head, glancing at each of the Mighty Nein in turn, double-checking they were all fine. Well, relatively fine.

 

Tomorrow probably would be scary, just like today had been. Probably even more so. But Beau wasn’t about to let her friends face it on her own. It was a comfort that they’d be there so she wouldn’t be alone too.

**Author's Note:**

> waddup its me ya boi  
> With Part 3 of the Nighttime Conversations With Beau In Caves/Tunnels/Underground Places (they're just really good places for conversations okay) 
> 
> Anyway poor Jester was really having a rough time of it by the end of that episode so she needs some softness and hugs and reassurances and Beau is a good comforter Despite What She Thinks (beau is wrong about MANY THINGS regarding herself) 
> 
> Anyway I love Jester someone please give her a hug please shes not having a fun time in this Death Cave of Horrors


End file.
